NORTH KINGSTOWN — Larry and Deborah Brown received good news last Wednesday that quickly turned to bad.

A man posing as a lawyer for Publishers Clearing House called them to say they had won $500,000.

“He said ‘Are you sitting down?’ ” said Larry, 62, a cook at SSTAR detox center.

The man who identified himself as Jeffrey Steiner, a lawyer from Albany, N.Y., told the couple they had won $500,000. They needed to pay $4,100 in taxes to receive the prize. He provided them with a phone number to call to confirm the winnings — which they did, they said. They wired the money to what Steiner explained was a mercantile bank in Israel.

Steiner contacted them again two days later. Their prize had been upgraded to $1.5 million. The top winner in Florida was disqualified after he was found to be an illegal immigrant. They now needed to provide $45,000 to cover the taxes.

Larry told him he couldn’t come up with $45,000, but that he’d get as much as possible. The Browns took a $13,000 cash advance on their credit card and $12,000 from their checking account. They wired the money to an account in Cyprus, said to be under the name Mickey Sharon.

Steiner called again, saying he needed more money. That is when the Browns became suspicious. They took their complaint to the North Kingstown Police Department after first approaching the attorney general’s office and the state police.

“The only reason I did it was because it was Publishers Clearing House. I figured they’re reputable,” Larry said. “It sounded good. Actually, it sounded too good.”

They were told there wasn’t much that could be done, but that an investigation would be initiated, they said.

“It means I’m screwed,” Larry said yesterday. “I can hardly pay my bills.”

The Browns worry they will fall short on the mortgage payments on the Lake Drive house they bought last year with their 26-year-old son Christopher. Deborah is unable to work because of symptoms associated with multiple sclerosis, but has not qualified for disability, they said. They fear they will not be able to cover medical expenses.

“Now I don’t know how it’s going to work out,” Larry said. “It ain’t gonna be easy.”

Deborah said the man wooed them with considerable knowledge of the Publishing Clearing House Prize Patrol and had an answer for every question they posed. They waited two days for him to send them a courier to escort them to the bank with a check.

“It was almost echoing everything we heard on TV and the radio,” she said. Add to that that her father once won $10,000 from Reader’s Digest.

The Browns said the money was going to be used to pay for their son to complete his civil engineering degree and give them extra money for medical bills. Now, the family frets about the loss and the embarrassment of being swindled.

Christopher L. Irving, an assistant vice president with Publishers Clearinghouse, said yesterday that the company receives calls weekly about scams, but that most potential victims stop short of sending money. Many of the schemes originate in Canada, making it harder to prosecute, he said.“If it’s not absolutely free,” Irving says, “it’s not Publishers Clearing House.”

kmulvane@projo.com